ReactorCraft - clever reactor setups?

[Thorinair]

Exceptional assembly, and I really like the aesthetics; are you actually maxing out with just the 4 HP turbines? I assumed you'd be able to do more.

Thanks! I think it could run on more than four, as the turbines keep spinning for quite a few minutes after the reactor is turned off.

Also, here is the video as promised, sorry for the extremely low frame rate. Also, one of the Absorbers melted at some point. Probably because of earlier tests with plasma.

I have also updated the original gallery with two new screenshots of the new Redstone control.

 

[Ieldra]

Nice video. I wonder though: which kind of machine must I have to get a reasonable fps rate around this setup?

 

[Reika]

Nice video. I wonder though: which kind of machine must I have to get a reasonable fps rate around this setup?

Mine gets 50, and it is hardly something exceptional.

 

[Ieldra]

Looking over a few small fission reactor designs, I'm finding that one design uses glass blocks as isolators instead of concrete. Now this was some kind of tutorial setup, but I think glass looks generally better. Is this a viable alternative?

Also, if I don't add any neutron reflectors in but use irradiation chambers on the outer edges (or whatever those things are called that make tritium), what's about the minimum number of cores I need for a functional HTG reactor?

 

[Demosthenex]

I don't think glass stops neutrons. You should use a double steel block wall, neutron absorbers, or neutron reflectors.

 

[Pyure]

Anyone know if insulating BWRs and/or breeders has any impact?

Saw another video lastnight where someone insisted this was the case, but for some reason I thought insulation was only important for HTGRs.

 

[Demosthenex]

Any adjacent solid block insulates. That's why I was experimenting so much with the heat transfer mechanics.

 

[Reika]

Also, if I don't add any neutron reflectors in but use irradiation chambers on the outer edges (or whatever those things are called that make tritium), what's about the minimum number of cores I need for a functional HTG reactor?

HTGRs do not spawn neutron entities, so cannot be used to make tritium.

Anyone know if insulating BWRs and/or breeders has any impact?

Yes, but it is also dangerous.

 

[Ieldra]

HTGRs do not spawn neutron entities, so cannot be used to make tritium.

Phew. Good to hear that now, before I've started building. *sigh*. Back to the drawing board....

 

[Ieldra]

Oh, and just to be sure that my long-term plans aren't totally misguided: the fusion reactor does create neutron entities, so that it's possible to make a fusion reactor that makes its own tritium after an initial startup? The thing is, I want to deal with the whole super-inefficient uranium enrichment process as little as possible.

 

[Pyure]

Oh, and just to be sure that my long-term plans aren't totally misguided: the fusion reactor does create neutron entities, so that it's possible to make a fusion reactor that makes its own tritium after an initial startup? The thing is, I want to deal with the whole super-inefficient uranium enrichment process as little as possible.

Is it weird that I actually really like the uranium enrichment process, and in particular the ability to use breeders to get value from the "depleted" stuff?

What part do you consider inefficient? I'm curious.

 

[Ieldra]

Is it weird that I actually really like the uranium enrichment process, and in particular the ability to use breeders to get value from the "depleted" stuff?

What part do you consider inefficient? I'm curious.

Oh, I do like it quite a bit, and under other circumstances, would delight in creating a workable uranium/plutonium cycle, but the thing is, it is not my goal to create a functional nuclear fission power infrastructure. My goal is the fusion reactor and I'm using fission as a stepping stone. Inefficient, well, that's the fact you get one usable unit of uranium dust out of a stack of uranium ingots. That's of course completely realistic (or rather it's not because the reality of it is so much worse), but yet another reason I want to go beyond that as fast as possible.

 

[Pyure]

Oh, I do like it quite a bit, and under other circumstances, would delight in creating a workable uranium/plutonium cycle, but the thing is, it is not my goal to create a functional nuclear fission power infrastructure. My goal is the fusion reactor and I'm using fission as a stepping stone. Inefficient, well, that's the fact you get one usable unit of uranium dust out of a stack of uranium ingots. That's of course completely realistic (or rather it's not because the reality of it is so much worse), but yet another reason I want to go beyond that as fast as possible.

I honestly recommend you just create more centrifuges.

I'm really bad for this myself: sometimes I blame the slowness of machines, and forget I can just create several of them.

In this case, inefficiency isn't really a big deal: centrifuges don't cost much power to run (if you're already at this point of the game), pitchblende and fluorite are abundant, and the UF6 creation step is literally free (just add water).

Always keep in mind that the fission stage isn't intended to be glossed over

 

[Ieldra]

I honestly recommend you just create more centrifuges.

I'm really bad for this myself: sometimes I blame the slowness of machines, and forget I can just create several of them.

In this case, inefficiency isn't really a big deal: centrifuges don't cost much power to run (if you're already at this point of the game), pitchblende and fluorite are abundant, and the UF6 creation step is literally free (just add water).

Always keep in mind that the fission stage isn't intended to be glossed over

Not power inefficiency. Resource inefficiency. As for being glossed over, from a technical perspective I must deal with the fission stage of course, but unlike we're doing in RL, I can use it as a stepping stone exclusively. I don't think I should be forced to re-create RL-similar infrastructures in order to move beyond them. I recall you saying as much when it comes to certain changed breeder attributes.

And of course I will be creating more centrifuges than one. I tend to overkill quite a bit with these things. That's why I'm worried because I "only" have 10k uranium ingots - it isn't that much if you consider you have to divide them by 50 or 100. I need to mine more. Considerably more...

BTW, I just discovered the Tokamak blueprint highlighter. Now that's a tool that should make it into the handbook ASAP.

 

[trajing]

Not power inefficiency. Resource inefficiency. As for being glossed over, from a technical perspective I must deal with the fission stage of course, but unlike we're doing in RL, I can use it as a stepping stone exclusively. I don't think I should be forced to re-create RL-similar infrastructures in order to move beyond them. I recall you saying as much when it comes to certain changed breeder attributes.

And of course I will be creating more centrifuges than one. I tend to overkill quite a bit with these things. That's why I'm worried because I "only" have 10k uranium ingots - it isn't that much if you consider you have to divide them by 50 or 100. I need to mine more. Considerably more...

Resource inefficiency?

 

[Pyure]

And of course I will be creating more centrifuges than one. I tend to overkill quite a bit with these things. That's why I'm worried because I "only" have 10k uranium ingots - it isn't that much if you consider you have to divide them by 50 or 100. I need to mine more. Considerably more...

Awesome.

Are you sure about the 50:1 ratio? I thought I was getting closer to 20:1.

I can't imagine you haven't any kind of shortage, ever, if you have 10k uranium ingots. Jebus. Even if you never set up a breeder reactor, I gotta think (without doing any math) that you must be good to go for your stepping stone.

Btw, fwiw, in my testing, breeder reactors put out a considerable amount of power in their own right.

 

[Ieldra]

Resource inefficiency?

The unfortunate fact that you have to process a huge amount of uranium to get a small amount of reactor fuel. It is as it is, I am not complaining about the fact, but it's something that's always in my mind when I plan these things. If I have 10k uranium and get 2% out of them, I actually have only 200. Now consider that you burn several of them at the same time and they last...hmm...last I heard was half an hour I think. It's really not that much.

As for the ratio, I've just watched a video by Danilus where he got one unit of enriched uranium dust out of a stack of normal dust. IIRC, you need several of those to make one fuel pellet, and one fuel core uses...what? Four of those at the same time, I think it was. Now you don't have only one core but, say, eight. That means you need to process somewhere between 64 and 256 stacks of uranium ingots to fill an eight-core reactor once. Or am I calculating that wrong?

 

[Padfoote]

The unfortunate fact that you have to process a huge amount of uranium to get a small amount of reactor fuel. It is as it is, I am not complaining about the fact, but it's something that's always in my mind when I plan these things. If I have 10k uranium and get 2% out of them, I actually have only 200. Now consider that you burn several of them at the same time and they last...hmm...last I heard was half an hour I think. It's really not that much.

As for the ratio, I've just watched a video by Danilus where he got one unit of enriched uranium dust out of a stack of normal dust. IIRC, you need several of those to make one fuel pellet, and one fuel core uses...what? Four of those at the same time. Now you don't have only one core but, say, eight. That means you need to process 64 stacks of uranium ingots to fill an eight-core reactor once. Or am I calculating that wrong?

The numbers are a bit low, but honestly, the amount of power you can get out of a properly built fission reactor is plenty to power several Digital Miners and the uranium processing at the same time.

I don't like the low ratio (this is just me being a hoarder, nothing against the design choice), but I feel like the power output makes it worth it since I can use that power to get more uranium.

 

[Pyure]

I guess the way i look at it is...I can refine uranium until I get, say, 8 enriched ones. I can plonk those into a tiny reactor and easily net 1TJ of power, which will keep me running for a long time unless I'm really wasteful.

 

[Ieldra]

I guess the way i look at it is...I can refine uranium until I get, say, 8 enriched ones. I can plonk those into a tiny reactor and easily net 1TJ of power, which will keep me running for a long time unless I'm really wasteful.

Sure, I'd look at it the same way if I was into it for the power alone, but the thing is that's not my primary consideration. I ask "how much tritium can I make from that, and is that enough to initiate a self-sustaining fusion cycle"? I also feel *really* uncomfortable about anything I can't make renewable. That's why I want to go fusion ASAP in the first place. Apart from the coolness of it and the technical challenge of course.